[Anime News Network] “A Song of Refugees and Fire”

Non-management: I work at a school in Japan, at the moment of this writing. I assist in teaching English, and one of my English teaching colleagues here loves to play English songs to the students before starting each class of hers. In particular, I’ve heard “We Are the World” dozens of times, to the point I don’t know just the lyrics. I know the ways each artist contributed to to the song, and there were some artist superstars that contributed: Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Cyndi Lauper, Tina Turner, Billy Joel. Under the collaborative group banner of U.S.A for Africa, all these singers intended the song to be the centerpiece of a fundraiser for famine relief efforts in Africa. If an appreciation for music is universal, then so should our concern for others, no matter their place of origin — or so the thinking back then went…